Dead Air - A Night Vale AU one-shot
by Cassandra Telford
Summary: Night Vale Episode "One Year Later" AU: What if Cecil didn't get the news that Carlos was going to be ok until it was too late? TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE. One-shot. CarlosxCecil (Cecilos).


**Notes: **

****TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE. Please don't read if you think it might trigger you. **

***This is an AU fic of the episode "One Year Later" and it contains spoilers. **

* * *

Cecil sat in his booth, holding the trophy he intended to give to Carlos when he showed up at the radio station – which he would, Cecil knew, when he returned victoriously from the underground city in the pin retrieval area of lane five of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley And Arcade Fun Complex – and had just finished reading a report about the Tiered Heavens and the Hierarchy of Angels when a vision came to his third eye, which pulsed and glowed faintly while his human eyes went unfocused. "Oh…" he said, shocked by what he was mentally seeing. "A truly fearful thing has happened, listeners…" And one might've thought that Cecil had been used to reporting truly fearful things in their small down, but this… this was different. "Carlos… standing triumphantly in the toy-scaled city… was attacked by tiny people using projectiles and explosives." The vision in his mind grew more and more horrific as he watched, but Cecil almost automatically continued to relate the events to the microphone in front of him. Station Management had trained him for this, had all but beaten the capacity for human emotions out of him when he took the job as the Voice of Night Vale, but Station Management hadn't predicted Carlos. Carlos' face in shock. Carlos' eyes welling in pain. "He fell back, to the side of the small hole in the pin retrieval area of lane five… blood welled through his shirt…" Cecil was beginning to feel sick. "And here I am... stuck in my booth…" His voice broke slightly. "Useless. Only able to narrate and not to help." A tear slipped from one of Cecil's still unfocused human eyes and he sniffled slightly as he tried to continue his report. "He staggered, fell to his knees…" His voice grew quieter. "So much blood… He collapsed completely…"

A despair like nothing Cecil had ever felt was slowly overtaking him. Sitting in the producer's booth, Dana had a hand over her open mouth in shock and horror at what Cecil was reporting, tears welling up in her own eyes at the thought of Carlos' cruel fate. As she watched, the glow slowly faded from Cecil's third eye, meaning the vision was finished. His human eyes though, had begun to cloud up in a shade of purple so dark that it was almost black. This was something she'd seen happen to Cecil before, but rarely, and normally when he was talking about Steve Carlsberg. Though his voice was as soft as velvet and his skin was as pale as the moon, there was a darker side of Cecil that occasionally manifested, and the clouded eyes were a sign of that. "Curse this town that saw Carlos die," Cecil was saying with utter hopelessness, "curse me… curse it all…" He took a deep breath. Dana could see him fighting hard to maintain his composure – lest he bring down the wrath of Station Management, surely.

But Cecil had no thoughts of Station Management, and only minimal thoughts of his duty as radio host. Though the vision had ended, he could still see Carlos, slumped against the wall, bleeding, as though the image was burned into his mind. He took a deep breath. "Let us take a moment to…" He was having trouble getting the words out – a radio first for him. "Let us… take… this moment…" It wasn't working. He took a deep breath. "Ladies and gentleman, let us mourn the pass-…" But he couldn't.

Dana leaned forward and rested a hand on the glass window separating her and Cecil, wishing she could comfort him, praying he'd be able to continue his broadcast for his own protection from Management. But his eyes were growing darker and his whole body was slumped with defeat. "Can't…" he mumbled, sounding like he was going to cry. "I can't... I'm still holding this trophy…" he said, scrunching his eyes shut as he leaned forward and with his other hand, held onto the microphone apparatus as though for dear life. For a moment, he just seemed lost, like he might never move again. "I…" he started, clenching onto the mic apparatus tighter, his whole body tensed, and he shook his head like he was trying to clear away his thoughts. "We go now to this p-pre-recorded public service announcement," he stuttered frantically, fumbling with the switches on the board in front of him and finding the one that would switch off his mic. Dana quickly looked to her own soundboard to find the button that would play the latest PSA and pushed it, and then looked up to see Cecil standing, his eyes entirely purplish-black, staring at his microphone.

"Cecil…" she said quietly, putting her hand against the glass again. With a somewhat mechanical quality, Cecil turned away from the mic and toward a small supply closet in the corner of the room. Almost every room in the station – hell, almost every room in Night Vale – was equipped with a small closet or container like this, containing all sorts of weaponry and Blood Stones and ritual ingredients for sigils and wards and fighting off whatever new horror would come into the town. "Cecil?" Dana repeated, and then remembered that Cecil's booth was soundproofed. She hit the button on her sound board that activated the intercom between the two rooms and repeated, "Cecil?" but if her heard her, he didn't answer. He suddenly had a small key in his hand and was unlocking the closet, opening the doors… "Cecil, what are you doing?" Dana asked but again he didn't respond, his dark eyes surveying the array of weapons before him. Dana looked over her shoulder and down the hall to Station Management's office, but no envelopes had come out from under the door. That might change shortly as it was against the rules for her to leave her station during air time, but she had to make sure Cecil was ok. "Cecil, I'm coming in," she said, and then released the button and then got up and went to the door that connected the two rooms but as she got there, Cecil's head suddenly turned her direction. His dark eyes looked at the lock on the door and under the quiet noise of the PSA playing in the background, Dana clearly heard the deadbolt slide into place. "Wha-?" she asked, not believing it, but when she tried the door, she indeed found it to be locked. "Cecil, open the door!" she said anxiously, knocking on the glass window in the door. Usually these bouts of eye-darkness only lasted a few seconds and Cecil would be back to his old self, but his eyes didn't seem to be clearing up this time. She pulled on the door frantically but the lock was solid and wouldn't budge. She shouted, trying to make herself heard through the soundproofing, "Cecil!"

But Cecil couldn't hear, wouldn't hear her. The gripping despair had enveloped him. _Carlos is dead, _he thought. _Carlos is dead. _Terrible things had happened in Night Vale before. Terrible things. But this was a million times worse than any of them. 'Terrible' couldn't hold a candle to the emotions that Cecil was feeling now. Emotions. The very thing that had truly made him fall for Carlos. Carlos had made Cecil feel, really, truly feel. After so long being the Voice of Night Vale, Cecil had all but forgotten that he'd once been plainly human. After the training Station Management had put him through, and the number of times he'd been sent to re-education, Cecil had become a reporter first, human second. His job was news, not emotion. He'd all but forgotten what it was like to feel regret, remorse, sadness…joy… love… And Carlos…. Beautiful Carlos…. Perfect Carlos… He had changed that. Carlos had reminded Cecil of what it was like to really feel, to really care, to be human. To love. _Carlos is dead. _Cecil reached into the cabinet and pulled out a wickedly long, sharp dagger, intended for small to medium animal sacrifices. After years of the radio host rejecting emotions so vehemently they all but disappeared, Carlos had made Cecil love. _Carlos is dead. _And though it had just minutes ago been full to bursting with that love, Cecil's heart was now crumbling, empty, and dead. Cecil didn't think anyone else would ever be able to put it back together. And the thought of going back to that cold, dark, lonely existence that was the life of the Voice of Night Vale was unthinkable, not after having experienced such warmth and light. _Carlos is dead and so also is everything good for me in this town._

As though they knew what he was planning – which they probably did, with their minor level of sentience – Cecil's tentacles emerged and wrapped themselves around his wrists, attempting to restrain him. He twisted his arms free and kept the tentacles at bay with the dagger, and reached into the cabinet, retrieving some cords which were intended for restraining the aforementioned animal sacrifices. For someone who had been shaking with grief mere minutes prior, Cecil's movements were now controlled and calculated as he grabbed hold of the tentacles and tied them with the cords in two groups, restraining them lest they attempt to interfere with his plans again. He wouldn't let anything stop him now. Come hell, high water, Station Management, City Council… nothing would stop him. He was finished, finished with being the Council's guinea pig, finished with being Management's puppet, finished with this grim façade of a real life.

Cecil walked back over to his chair and sat down in front of his microphone. He'd lived most of his life sitting there with that microphone, so it seemed to be a fitting place to die. He barely heard the sound of the PSA or the sound of Dana pounding frantically on the door and screaming over the sound of his repeated thoughts, _Carlos is dead. _Cecil could still see the image of blood welling up through Carlos' shirt in his mind, and so, with two quick swipes of the dagger to the insides of his wrists, called forth his own blood to well up from his body, pour over his arms and drip down to stain the carpet like Carlos' stained lab coat. _Funny, _he thought, _that someone with so little human left in him can die in such a human way. _He almost chuckled as what little color he had began draining from his face, and then, as the PSA ended, he reached out and flicked the button on his console that turned his mic back on. With that soft-as-velvet voice, he said simply, "Goodbye, Night Vale. Goodbye."

And then the blood pouring from his wrists shorted out the console and Night Vale was left with naught but the sound of dead air.

* * *

"CECIL!" Dana screamed, pounding on the door and horrified at what she was seeing as she watched Cecil take a dagger to his own wrists. "CECIL, NO!" She wasn't sure how long she stood there screaming and pounding on the glass window in the door. This couldn't be happening, it couldn't be real. First Carlos, and now Cecil, they were both dead, they were-

But at that moment, Carlos came barreling into the production booth. Dana shrieked but it could barely be heard above Carlos shouting, "CECIL!"

"Carlos, what-? How?" Dana was sputtering, tears streaming down her face. Carlos was pale and still covered in blood.

"CECIL!" Carlos was shouting again as he shook the door handle. In response to Dana, he grunted, "The Apache Tracker… pulled me out… but I heard over the speakers… heard Cecil saying goodbye…" He threw himself against the door but it refused to open. So the scientist cast his eyes about the production booth frantically until they alighted on Dana's microphone, which he ripped violently off its apparatus and with a terse command for her to move, he slammed the mic against the glass of the door again and again until it broke. Carlos reached in through the broken glass and unlocked the deadbolt on the door from the inside and then pushed through the door so violently it slammed against the wall and more broken glass dropped to the floor. But Carlos wasn't concerned now about what Station Management would do to him for damaging the studio and the equipment so much. There was so much blood. He rushed over to Cecil and crouched down next to the radio host's chair. "Cecil, Cecil I need you to look at me, Cecil, wake up," he sputtered frantically. "Cecil, no, Cecil, you have to wake up." Dana stood in the doorway and began to sob silently. Carlos' eyes were tearing up now too. "Cecil!" He pulled Cecil into his arms, the radio host's blood now staining his lab coat along with the scientist's own blood. "CECIL!"

After a few minutes during which Dana and Carlos both simply cried, Carlos took a deep breath and settled Cecil back into his chair. He untied the cords that bound Cecil's tentacles and brushed Cecil's hair out of his face, and then kissed Cecil's forehead over the spot where the third eye had now closed forever. And without another word, Carlos turned and left the studio almost as abruptly as he'd come.

* * *

Some witnesses say that the blood-spattered scientist got into his car and immediately, literally disappeared, car and all. Others will swear that a tractor beam from the lights above the Arby's snagged the vehicle and took it up into the sky. All anyone knows for sure is that Carlos the Scientist was never seen in Night Vale again.

And that the next day, two more angels showed up at Old Woman Josie's house: one with a faintly purple glow, and the other with a slightly gray coloration near its temples.


End file.
